1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an adapter and, more particularly, to an adapter detachably disposed in a portable electronic device.
2. Related Art
Electronic devices such as a notebook computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a multimedia player device and a mobile phone are all equipped with connecting ports. The connecting ports may be used to connect various peripheral devices such as a printer, a keyboard, a mouse, a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, a network cable, a compact disk drive and so on. In the external connecting mode, the electronic device may have high expandability, and the number of devices disposed on the electronic device may be reduced, which increases the portability and convenience of the electronic device.
Since there are various kinds of peripheral devices, the types of connecting ports also are various. For example, the common types of connecting ports include network cable connecting ports, modem connecting ports, parallel ports, serial ports, USB ports, mouse and keyboard connecting ports (personal system/2 (PS/2) ports), video connecting ports, such as VGA ports, DVI ports, separate-video (S-video) connecting ports, retractable media connecting ports (for connecting external floppy disk drives or external compact disk drives), audio connecting ports, such as earphone connecting ports and microphone connecting ports, memory connecting ports and so on. The connecting ports listed above include sockets or holes for the plugs of the peripheral devices to insert. Thus, the electronic device may be electrically connected to the peripheral devices, and then the function of the electronic device is expanded.
To take a notebook computer as an example, the connecting ports are often disposed at the front, back, left and right sides of the main body. Recently, since a battery of the notebook computer is often disposed at the back, the disposing space of the connecting ports may be limited at the front, left and right sides. In addition, to increase the portability and convenience of the notebook computer, being light and slim becomes the main objective when the notebook computer is designed. However, as the notebook computer is slimmer and slimmer, some connecting ports with a larger size such as the VGA port, the PS/2 port and the serial port are hard to be disposed on the notebook computer.
Some notebook computer designers try to connect a peripheral device with a larger connecting port to the notebook computer via an adapter cable. Thus, the computer only may be equipped with a smaller sized connecting port such as the USB port, for users connect the connecting cable to the USB port to connect the peripheral device. In such a case, the notebook computer does not need to be equipped with larger connecting ports, and the thickness of the notebook computer would not increase.
However, since the adapter cable is not the necessary accessory, the user may forget to bring it, and thus he cannot connect the peripherals to the notebook computer and use the peripherals when the peripherals are needed. In addition, the user may forget to put away the cable, and the adapter cable may be lost.